Therapist Plays The Stanley Parable - 3 - NOTES

Source: Therapist Plays The Stanley Parable - 3

Notes

• Locus of Control 🌱 - "places on control", where do you place yourself on the spectrum?

• The locus of control is a spectrum between Internal and External. Internal being 'Everything that happens to me is within my control' and external being "Everything that happens to me is outside of my control"

• How do you tell the story of how things happen to you? Do you make a lot of external excuses or do you think about what your choices were that led you to that consequence?

• E.g if you are late for work and you are on the internal side of the spectrum you would blame yourself for things like not getting up earlier, or making some other choices that would have made you earlier for work. But if you were on the external side, you would blame other things like traffic or other people on why you were late - things that you were not your own decisions.

• Neither end of the spectrum is that healthy to be on, you should aim to be in the middle, not at either extreme because not everything in your life can be blamed on you, and there will be things in your life that happen that are out of your control, that's just how life is nothing is constantly out to get you and nothing is entirely your fault. Sometimes your decisions do matter, sometimes they do not due to outside circumstances.

• Highly internalised locus of control - they are motivated by self determination and don't look externally for motivation. They can have a really hard time delegating and letting go of control and can have a lot of perfectionism. They are extremely self reliant and independent and struggle with asking for and receiving help, because they don't trust others because they feel responsible and could see it as a sign of weakness and se eit as a threat to their self esteem and confidence, since it comes from their self reliance. They're good at owning their accomplishments but struggle to move on from mistakes and toil over them and overthink them about how they could change things, or even try to force a solution instead of moving on, even if it was out of their control. Issues such as eating disorders, which gives them a sense of control can be something people with an internalised locus of control can face. They can struggle to function when they face resistance to their sense of control.

• Highly externalised locus of control - can be highly resilient to change, they roll with the punches and accept things as they are and move on quickly. They can be a bit more adventures and are open to new experiences they come their way. As a leader they can be good and really trust the people they work with, but could also be bad in the extreme and never take personal responsibility for anything. They can be very blameful and not own up to mistakes or problems because 'I was made to do that' or 'that's just how the world is'. They use a lot of abstractions to explain problems in the life and struggle with initiative, they might wait around to compel momentum for them. They accept people easier and have less issues asking for help. They could be more positive and being accepting that things will be okay, but could also reside themselves to sadness. They struggle to accept compliments and cannot feel proud of themselves and think that their success are luck or external and not about them at all.

• Both of these extremes are unhealthy and it's good to be in the middle where you have most of the positives of each in the middle.

• It takes shape about how you think about other people's lives.

• Your locus of control can also shape how you think about other people's lives too. If you are highly internal, you will apply those traits to others as well. People on the internal size will lack a lot of empathy. They can look at someone's life and blame them for every bad thing that has happened to you because they think you are 100% in control of everything that happens to you. "Your poor because you don't work hard enough" etc. All their decisions are because of things they did, so why didn't they work that hard as well? Externalised people may have a lot more empathy for others and see how a lot of things are not within everyone's control e.g. "there are many biological, sociological or economic reasons why someone would be struggling that are out of their control." etc.

• Why would you develop a persuasion to one side or the other? This comes down to your parenting

• For the internal side, if you are on the extreme internal side there is a lot of extreme criticism of other people, which can imprint itself onto an impressionable child and move down the line. They insist on other people being like this, so if your parents continually blame you for not being better and not doing better and how everything is your fault from being bullied to failing tests and how you must have done something wrong for this to happen to you, then the child will obviously start talking to themselves in the exact same way. "I'm stuck in a dead end job because I have no skills" "I'm not creative because I am stupid or lazy". It stunts the child's ability to see any of the positive virtues that come with the internalized locus of control because what is being reinforced is all the negative ones.

• On the externalised side, the parent may not note any of the child's accomplishments like "You did good on that test because you're lucky" "You're lucky that that person likes you because there's nothing good about you." This child become unable to take ownership of anything in their life. "the world hates me" is the mentality they come away with.